Member postings for MW

An interesting point Bob, that reminds me of a program i watched on dis. science a while ago about a specialist recycling plant that only deals in all the parts of a car that can't usually be recycled, such as the battery and extracts all the heavy metals and chemicals that it can out of it and repurposes them for either recycling the clean metals back into production or using the acids/chemicals for industrial chemical purposes, the processing plant has very little waste by the time they've found a use for everything.

The only reason why they can do it is they have the outlay and machines to deal with it that most other recycling plants can't deal with. Due to the nasty chemicals involved. 

To be fair, Jon. My shed is like a scrapyard. But i'll probably need a substantial dog to make the "travelling persons of a nefarious disposition" think twice. 

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 04/07/2016 22:46:51

Yeah, i guess unless you have something worth considering they aren't likely to take it. I probably don't have 1/5th of that. 

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 04/07/2016 19:01:35

Well most of them will fail under heat. You can even use that to your advantage.

Michael W

It sounds very tragic, not to put you on a downer i hope, all i can do is wish you luck and post this to keep it top of the latest for now but only a short moment indeed. Good luck!

I know of nobody who owns a steam engine and have only ever seen them in museums and shows, so i have next to no contacts, sorry i can't help. If i did, rest assured i would've done my best. 

Michael W 

Edited By Michael Walters on 04/07/2016 12:02:11

Hi, i use a bearing and shafts grade of Bondloc, comes in a black tube, a UK variety, it's reasonably priced and i've noticed it's "glupy-er" than the regular variety of loctite.

My original reason for buying was simply a buy 1 get 1 free deal, i suppose loctite would do their own variety of my selected grade but i've stuck with that ever since. 

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 04/07/2016 11:45:22

Not only that but you can heat it up again to remove it for when you need to make special parts to fit perfectly together, in terms of alignment to one another.

Michael W

I take it the 5 o'clock shadow and bright orange duds are non obligatory? I know you said a good sized spanner but can a lego one count too? You see i've got an old pair of record stilsons up in the loft and i've probably got a lego one also and i was wondering which of the two would be better? 

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 04/07/2016 06:16:08

I agree that you could argue it's a positive influence regardless of whether or not you're any good at it. It's one more interesting thing you didn't do yesterday.

Michael W

I personally prefer AC induction motors for machining and i will freely admit i had the last straw with the WM16 DC motor and outfitted it with one myself. For light duty loads a DC motor should be adequate you would greatly increase it's lifespan by adding a fan.

Michael W

Necessity is regarded as the mother of all invention so goes the popular saying, for me, the main desire I could sum up with a simple sentence "what happens if i?" - It's the excitement of fulfilling possibility. The ability to use technology to solve your problems.

The rest i will probably learn the hard way through setbacks and failures, but i remember none of it would happen without the former desire.

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 03/07/2016 10:40:03

If it was working well prior to this then maybe some damage has occured or damp is shorting it, outdoor electrics are a pesky business.

Or, perhaps you put something new on the line and the wires are overheating, depends what they're rated for, i'm not saying this is the case just i had a couple of garage lights kept shorting because the copper was too thin.

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 03/07/2016 09:06:07

Its good advice but i'd make sure you've got a decent blow torch before you attempt it, your typical soldering iron wont cut the mustard. Not to mention the ensuing firescale that may develop. CA is fine if you want to.

Michael W

Yeah i have a WM16 and its just over 100kg, so it's bigger than it may seem in the picture, the table is over a metre long. And if all your considering is machining aluminium a much smaller machine would do the trick. I'd defy anyone to move one of those by themselves, even if you perform the local strongman act, it's the "top heavy" aspect of it that makes it so hard. 

You buy the magazine right? Well have a look at the work produced by Mike Cox, He's made quite a few contraptions out of (mild) steel using the X1 mill and a similarly sized lathe. I can't see any reason why you should avoid morse taper tooling either.

If you want to drill large holes into focal lens blanks or whatever-camera-doo-hicky then saving the money you would spend on wm16 you could get a dedicated drill press as well as a SIEG mill,  i personally didn't get on with using the mill as a drilling machine, not so much the ability but the chopping and changing between setups. 

I think you might find a recurring theme with machine tools that it isn't so much what you have but good practice that counts.

Just look at some of the machines made before 1850, at that point in history much of the work we do on a mill was done all by hand.

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 03/07/2016 05:04:39

Amazing that it was this incident that prompted it's creation yet by the time they got round to using it, Dahl's son had healed, yet it helped who knows how many others til science progressed beyond it.

Michael W

It's probably because Arc is a company established by people who use the products themselves, and so therefore aspire to provide the service they too would like in return, as a hypothetical user.

Michael W

Well, competition is upping it's game as now i reckon Bison chucks are pretty good, and they are polish made. They sell them to industry. As well as Gerardi milling vices, italian made. And what about Vertex in Taiwan? 

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 02/07/2016 13:22:32

Clearly everyone would buy the very best if they could part with the cash. Also, what makes you think a name makes something worth while? Are you implying that simply because something is cheap it must be bad quality? It might be wise to reconsider that notion. There is something known as competition, customer service (a good example above) and value for money, maybe they don't want to charge an arm and a leg just because they can. 

Is the opinion of someone who doesn't engineer for a living worth any less than someone who does? I know plenty of professional machinists who have a very narrow skill set as opposed to hobbyists. 

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 02/07/2016 11:17:21

I think they're about the same price as bison chucks, for me and the common man it's HBM India if i want one.

I dunno Roy, anyone worked in a sawdust factory?

I think he means the laminate side but given how little i've picked up a yellow pages, mines got to be at least 1 inch thick layered with dust. 

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 01/07/2016 23:09:22

Ohhh dear.... you been hitting the bottle lately?

Michael W